


The Popsicle Experiment

by ElderBerryBeret



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26199922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElderBerryBeret/pseuds/ElderBerryBeret
Summary: Eddie likes popsicles.  Richie conducts an experiment.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 65





	The Popsicle Experiment

Richie didn’t really like popsicles. He didn’t like the brain-freeze or the taste of the too-sugary sweetness. He always chose candy, when he had a few bucks spare to spend at the store. Snickers were his favourites. His dad always ragged him out about it. Apparently the caramel was murder on your teeth. “You’ll regret your choices, Richie.” His dad always said. “When you’re in my chair getting a root canal.” Richie, being sixteen, and being who he was, didn’t listen. Richie’s dad was big on allowing Richie to face the consequences of his own (bad) decisions. It was a parenting strategy that Richie wholeheartedly approved of, since he was a master at talking his way out of sticky situations.

Eddie liked them. They were top of Eddie’s list in the summer, when it felt like the sun was melting the asphalt, and they were set free from the torture of school. Eddie favoured popsicles and slushies, anything ice cold and sweet. Richie had read an article about the germs that lived in ice machines, but he kept this information to himself. He didn’t want to ruin Eddie’s enjoyment. The boy had enough troubles in his life, without worrying about the cleanliness of his slushies. And, besides, Eddie sometimes let Richie share.

Richie was a straight-A student, but sometimes he could be a real dumbass. Certain important things about other people tended to pass him by. He just didn’t notice them. Like he had hit a blind spot. Richie was the king of chucks, the kid whose mouth got him into trouble with authority figures and bullies alike. Before, he might have said he was the class clown. But none of the Losers would ever use the word clown to describe him now. Not after what happened. In any event, Richie, in spite of his academic record, could be very slow.

The point was, Richie should have realised sooner that it meant something that Eddie, the boy who carried hand sanitiser and antiseptic cream in his fanny pack, would willingly share a popsicle with Richie, and no-one else.

Richie had his a-ha moment, inconveniently, when he was at church with his parents. 

He was daydreaming his way through the sermon, thinking about asking Eddie if he’d be willing to try to sneak in to the Aladdin to see the latest instalment of the Child’s Play franchise later. Eddie would put up a token protest, telling Richie in graphic detail what would happen to them if they were caught sneaking into an NC-17 movie, but he would go along with it anyway. He probably told himself he went along with Richie’s schemes so that he’d be there to help if (when) it all went wrong, but Richie knew Eddie secretly loved the thrill of Richie’s mischief.

He was idly thinking about meeting Eddie at his house, waiting on the sidewalk to avoid an uncomfortable encounter with Eddie’s mom, heading downtown and buying snacks before walking to the movie theatre. Richie was a boy of limited means, and was well practiced in the art of smuggling in contraband snacks. He would buy a large bag of peanut M&Ms, some Mike&Ikes and a can of soda. Eddie would buy a popsicle, which he and Richie would share as they walked along Main Street, heading towards the Aladdin.  
The thought crossed his mind, fleeting, and inconsequential. But then his brain screeched to a halt and his thoughts circled back.

Eddie never shared his food with anyone other than Richie. How had he not noticed this before? Never, not once, had Richie ever seen Eddie share something with any of their other friends that involved, to put it crudely, Eddie putting his mouth on something that had been touched by someone else.

Except for Richie. 

Slowly, Richie thought, this must mean that Eddie saw him differently to the others. 

His thoughts derailed.

Richie had spent the best part of two years hiding from himself, as well as from everyone else. Sometimes, late at night, in the darkness, he allowed the thoughts to circle his mind, as if he’d opened a box that was buried deep within him, taking out something precious, that needed to be protected from the harsh light of day, and still dangerous. He knew his thoughts were bad, sinful, shameful, and he kept these thoughts to himself. Silent for once in his life. He would have liked to stop the thoughts altogether, but they flickered across his mind like polaroid snapshots. Eddie riding on the back of Bill’s bike down Main Street, Eddie wearing shorts, Eddie jumping into the quarry pool, and dunking Richie under the water. Eddie’s arm around Richie’s shoulders, their heads together reading comic books in Richie’s room.

So Richie knew, deep down, in the darkness, at night, that he was in love with Eddie. He’d known since that horrific summer two years ago, when they’d all come together as the Losers.

The question was, if Richie was special to Eddie, what did that mean?

By the time the sermon was over, and Richie’s folks were driving to the Waffle House (the only good thing about church on Sundays, in Richie’s opinion, were the waffles afterwards), Richie had catalogued and sorted his thoughts about Eddie and had come to the conclusion that it was possible that there was more to this than just popsicles.

It was possible that Eddie touched Richie more than he touched the others. It was possible that Eddie allowed Richie to touch him more than anyone else, that he might even encourage the noogies and Richie’s casual arm around his shoulders. 

This was a train of thought that needed further investigation.

***  
Richie was waiting on the sidewalk outside Eddie’s house. He hadn’t been inside since the incident with Eddie’s mom in the hospital. Sonia Kaspbrak had no time for any of Eddie’s friends. She thought they were all a bad influence on him, that they had been responsible for his broken arm. Richie knew it must have taken some grit for Eddie to stand his ground against his mom and keep hanging out with them. 

He saw Eddie wave to him from his bedroom window, and Richie waved back, standing with his bike between his legs, waiting, as the street lights started to flicker on, and the sound of the neighbour’s TV reached his ears. 

None of them talked about the summer two years ago. The memories had faded but he remembered that something terrible had happened. He knew that they had gone down into the sewers, and that wild horses couldn’t drag him back to the Barrens, which was sad, because he’d loved it there when he was younger. He remembered the clubhouse down there, and Stan insisting on shower caps to keep the spiders out of their hair, and he remembered sharing the hammock with Eddie.

He remembered the clown, the werewolf on Neibolt Street, the pictures that moved and the cuts on Bill’s fingers. He remembered them standing in a circle, the blood oath they’d all sworn, but he could not remember anything that had happened in the sewers. Had they killed It? He thought they must have. But if they had, why would Bill have insisted on the pact? 

This sometimes kept Richie up at night. It sometimes crawled up his spine, chilling him, making him want to creep into his parents bed like he was six, not sixteen, to hide under the covers. It made him want to reach out to the other Losers, to see if they had nightmares, or if they shared the sense of unease that hit him at certain places in town, where something must have happened, but he couldn’t remember exactly what.

Richie had a sense that some of them (Stan definitely, maybe Eddie and Ben, too) had buried what had happened somewhere deep in their psyche. He thought that they might crack if he tried to talk to them, that reliving the horror might break the fragile equilibrium they’d constructed in order to get through life without going crazy. So he carried his terrors alone, uneasy in his skin, sometimes inexplicably jumpy and on high alert.

It was times like these that he really missed Beverley. She’d moved away the previous summer. He was pleased for her. He hoped she’d have fewer bruises, now that she and her mother were staying with her aunt in Chicago, a better (safer) life. He missed her and he sometimes pictured her, in the big city, wearing clothes she’d made herself living a life free of the constraints of small town Maine. Richie wanted to live in a big city. He thought big cities might be kinder to people like him. Still, he was hurt that she’d not kept in touch. It made him feel disposable.

“Hey Trashmouth.” Eddie said, appearing from his house at last. “Are we going or what?”

“Lead the way, Eddie Spaghetti.” Richie said.

“Fuck off.” Eddie said. “You know I hate it when you call me that.”

“OK, Eds.” Richie said, pushing his bike along the sidewalk as he and Eddie headed down town. Eddie flipped him the bird. He hated being called Eds, as well. “Still up for some NC-17 movie adventures?” 

“I’m only going along with this for you.” Eddie said. “I don’t even like Child’s Play. I hate that doll.” This was typical Eddie, maintaining his plausible deniability. Richie thought that Eddie secretly enjoyed his schemes and mischief, even though he’d never admit it.

“It’ll be fun.” Richie said. “I need to stock up on supplies.” He said, leading them to the 7-11. Eddie called him a cheapskate, and waited outside with Richie’s bike, while Richie went into the store. He bought a bunch of snacks, using up half of his allowance for the week, and, thinking about his earlier revelation, bought a raspberry popsicle for Eddie. Richie handed it to him as they walked.

Eddie started talking about the new Wolverine comic he’d seen in the window of the comic store, and got into the detail of the most recent story arc. Richie was on high alert, not really following Eddie’s conversation, waiting to see if his hypothesis would hold up. He had no choice but to be patient, not a normal state of being for Richie. The experiment would have no value if he asked Eddie to share. It was the basic principle of the scientific method. Hypothesise, test, observe. He watched Eddie’s lips turn pink.

About halfway to the Aladdin, Eddie - in the middle of a sentence about the Wolverine/Deadpool crossover - absently handed the popsicle to Richie. Richie took it, with slightly unsteady hands, and licked it, before handing it back to Eddie. Eddie took it, and continued eating it.

Richie’s original hypothesis was proven: Eddie shared food. Apparently his sensitivity and hyper-awareness of a range of potential contaminants, particularly the range of germs in the average human mouth, did not apply to Richie. Now Richie needed to test his theory to figure out if it was true that Eddie never shared with any of his friends.

Richie’s excitement at sneaking in (using the tried and tested method of buying tickets for a PG movie, before waiting until the door staff disappear - usually just after the ads and trailers finished - and sneaking into the auditorium for the age-inappropriate film) was eclipsed by his euphoria conjured by Eddie’s simple act of sharing.

***

Over the course of the next few weeks, excruciatingly slowly to Richie’s mind, Richie watched and observed. He bought a lot of popsicles.

Once or twice, he thought he caught Eddie looking at him weirdly, and he wondered if he’d been rumbled. Eddie was sharp, and, after all these years, was wise to Richie’s usual bullshit. But he didn’t call Richie out.

Eddie didn’t offer his popsicles to anyone but Richie, which seemed to support his theory, but which wasn’t definitive proof. Richie decided he needed a more direct test. 

He didn’t really plan to confide in anyone. Planning wasn’t Richie’s forte, really, he was more of a fly by the seat of his pants kind of guy. In the end, it just bubbled up and spilled out of him, on a bright, hot day at the quarry. Bill, Ben and Mike had drifted off to finish their chores. Eddie was visiting his aunts in Albany. He’d been complaining about it all week.

Richie and Stan were sitting on the yellow grass at the jumping off point, the quarry twinkling below, cool and inviting. Richie was wearing a t-shirt and long shorts, and he was sitting in the shade, as he could feel the start of sunburn prickling his cheekbones. He should have listened to his mother, when she pressed the sun cream into his hand that morning. Stan, who was not cursed with too-fair skin, was propped up on one arm, soaking up the sun.

“Have you noticed anything weird about Eddie?” Richie said, when the pressure of not speaking out had passed beyond his ability to keep his thoughts locked behind his teeth. Anyone who knew Richie would have said that this threshold was practically at ground level.

“Huh?” Stan said. “Everything’s weird about Eddie.”

“I’m serious, Stan.” Richie said.

“He’s obsessed with cleanliness.” Stan said. “And health food, and exercise.”

“I don’t mean what’s weird about his personality.” Richie said. “We’re all a bunch of weirdos, Stan, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“What then?” Stan said. 

“Do you think he’s weird about sharing?”

“No.” Stan said. “Not really. He shares his comics. Where are you going with this Rich?”

Richie looked up to the sky, until black spots danced in front of his eyes. He thought he could trust Stan. He thought it might be safe to let Stan see the part of him that he kept hidden. It wasn’t without risk. He knew that. 

“I’ve been watching him lately.” Richie said, and Stan rolled his eyes, and sat up, giving Richie his full attention. “I think he shares things with me, but not with the rest of you guys?”

“Like the popsicles?” Stan said.

Richie wasn’t surprised that Stan had noticed. Apart from the fact that Richie had probably been totally transparent in his “experiment”, Stan had always been keen-eyed. He tended to sit back, watch what was going on around him, and, occasionally, slice people in two with his sharp observations. Richie had been on the harsh end of Stan’s scrutiny many times before. It tended to be uncomfortable. Stan saw everything.

“Yeah.” Richie said. “Like the popsicles. What do you think it means?”

Stan rolled his eyes again. “What do you think it means, Richie?”

Richie looked back up at the sky, not wanting Stan to see his face. He couldn’t answer the question. 

Stan hugged his knees, and stared at Richie. 

Eventually, Richie looked back at him. “I think it might mean that Eddie likes me.” Richie said.

“Of course Eddie likes you, you idiot.”

Stan wasn’t going to make it easy on him. But then, if he’d wanted an easy, supportive conversation, he’d have gone to Ben, who would probably have looked at him with a slightly confused air, and agreed with anything Richie said.

“Eddie likes you.” Stan said, more slowly, and holding direct eye contact.

“I need to be sure, Stan.” Richie said, feeling like the words were knives across his skin. This was the closest he’d ever come to admitting out loud, and in the presence of another living soul, that his feelings for Eddie might stray out of the realm of the purely platonic and into something that Richie didn’t have the words to explain. “Can you help me, Stan? I can’t take a risk on something that’s not certain. I need to be sure.”

***

So that was how Stan, egged on by Richie, wound up buying himself a popsicle, cherry flavour, Eddie’s favourite, the next time the three of them were hanging around in town. 

Richie hung back, as Eddie and Stan walked ahead. He could hear the rise and fall of their voices, but couldn’t quite make out what was being said. He was watching intently, and almost tripped up the kerb as he crossed the street. 

He watched as Stan offered Eddie his popsicle, and felt like he was hanging in suspended animation, as he waited for Eddie to respond. It was a fraction of a second, and an eternity at the same time. Richie was thoroughly conflicted in that moment. 

If Eddie refused the popsicle, it would prove Richie’s theory. It would mean that Richie hadn’t misread things, that he was special in Eddie’s eyes. 

At the same time, part of Richie was hoping Eddie would take Stan’s popsicle, as this would surely be the easiest and lowest risk outcome. Richie could suppress his inconvenient feelings, and continue being Eddie’s best friend with no complications. No need to bring his night-time thoughts into the daylight, no need to face up to the fact that he was different, and he was starting to think Eddie might be different, too.

Richie blinked, and saw Eddie take Stan’s popsicle behind his eyes and felt his hope die. He blinked again, and saw Eddie refuse Stan’s offer. Two different lives spun out in seconds from these thoughts, like parallel universes. Richie knew he was being dramatic, but being self-aware didn’t stop him seeing this moment as, potentially, a critical turning point in his life.

Eddie refused to share Stan’s popsicle.

Richie watched him shake his head, and saw Stan shrug and continue walking. 

Richie’s world exploded in a riot of terrifying possibilities. 

“What the hell are you doing back there, Richie?” Eddie called, and Richie made his feet move, one in front of the other, until he caught up with them. “What’s with you tonight?” Eddie said.

Richie threw one arm around Stan’s shoulder and the other around Eddie’s. He could do this. He could behave normally, at least until he’d had the chance to process this. “Just thinking me thinks.” Richie said. “What’s the plan, Stan?”

***

Ben was leaving. He and his mom were moving out of state. Richie thought Ben’s mom was one of the few adults who’d noticed - and remembered - the shit storm that had happened two years earlier, so Richie wasn’t surprised that she wanted to take her only son and leave. It didn’t make it any easier to say goodbye.

“You’ve got to st-st-st-stay in t-touch.” Bill said, leaving unspoken what Richie would have bet they were all thinking. Bev had sworn she wouldn’t forget them, and yet she never called, never wrote, not so much as a Christmas card. The remaining Losers didn’t talk about it much. 

“I will.” Ben said, brandishing a pocket-sized address book that had been in his shirt pocket. “I’ve got everything written down.” 

Richie didn’t ask why Ben would need to write down details that he knew as well as he knew his own name. Ben was clever, and had a good memory. He certainly knew all of their phone numbers by rote, and their addresses. Just like Richie did.

He thought of Bev, then, the first of them to leave town. Richie liked to imagine Bev having a great time in Chicago, too busy with her new, exciting big city life to think much about her younger self and the friends she’d left behind. On his darkest days, when Richie felt raw and broken, he thought about how his own memory of the events of that summer, how it had faded. He wondered how much Bev remembered, if she remembered anything at all. But that was a terrifying train of thought, and one that he turned away from. 

They helped Ben’s mom load up the U-Haul, and the five of them stood in a line as the truck, with Ben in the passenger seat, pulled away. 

***

Richie was feeling low.

The weather had turned the day after Ben left, with the long, sunny days replaced by heavy, dark clouds and torrential rain. Bill always disappeared on days like these, and hadn’t been seen all week. Richie thought he understood why Bill hid away on days when the rain fell in sheets, running fast down the streets into the drains, threatening a flood. He didn’t think Bill should beat himself up about Georgie. It wasn’t Bill’s fault.

He rattled around at home, until he got under his mother’s feet once too often, and she snapped at him to find something productive to do and stop bothering her. 

He was in his room, lying back on his bed, bored but unable to concentrate on anything, when his mother called up to say that Eddie had called by. He heard Eddie running up the stairs.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Eddie. He didn’t want Eddie to see him like this. Sprawled across his bed in sweatpants, with smudges on his glasses that had been there for days that he hadn’t bothered to wipe away, and with the curtains drawn against the rain.

Eddie swept in, dripping rainwater onto Richie’s carpet.

“Jesus Christ, Richie.” Eddie said, opening the curtains to let in grey daylight, before sitting on the end of Richie’s bed, and shaking his wet hair. “You look like shit. When did you last have a shower?”

“Today.” Richie said.

Eddie’s face said he didn’t believe Richie, but he didn’t say anything. Richie flopped back on his pillows, one arm covering his face.

“Has anyone had a call from Ben?” Richie asked, because this had been turning over in his mind for days now. 

“I don’t think so.” Eddie said. “He must be busy, I guess. Getting settled.”

“Uh huh.” Richie said. It was sometimes difficult to know, with Eddie, if he was just being a little slower than Richie, or if his mind was deliberately turning away from things that might lead him back to thinking about what had happened that summer. Richie thought there were tendrils from those events that were still wrapped around all of them, an invisible brand they all carried, that marked them, made them different.

He thought the Losers could be split into two groups now. Those of them who had shut their minds to what had happened, no doubt a kind of self-defence mechanism; and those of them who kept one-eye open even as the memories faded, not entirely convinced it was safe to let their guard down. Stan, Eddie and Ben had been in the first group. Richie, Bill, Mike and Bev in the latter. But now Bev and Ben were gone.

Richie would usually let it go. Just because Richie’s thoughts often turned over the events he could remember, especially when he was feeling low, there was no sense in pushing Eddie to think about it. But right now, he was feeling raw, and hurt, and confused. “Don’t you think it’s weird that he hasn’t called?’ Richie said. “It’s been five days.”

Eddie shrugged.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that Bev never called us, not one of us, since the day she left?” He pushed himself up on his elbows and straightened his glasses. 

“She’s probably living it up in the big city.” Eddie said. “Too busy to think about us.”

“Uh huh.” Richie said. “You don’t think it’s weird?”

“Jesus, Richie.” Eddie said, getting up and pacing in the confined space between Richie’s bed and his walk-in closet. “I said it’s not weird, OK? Just let it go, will you?”

And there it was. Eddie’s self-defence instincts kicking in.

“OK, Eds.” Richie said. “Forget it.”

“Don’t call me Eds.” Eddie muttered, Richie put his hands up, gesturing his apology. “Do you want to head out to the arcade?” Eddie said. “Play some Street Fighter?”

“Is that a challenge?” Richie said, hauling himself upright. 

“Get changed, and let’s go.” Eddie said. 

It was a challenge, and not one that Eddie would win. Richie was the undefeated Street Fighter champion. It was also a blatant play to get Richie out of the house, and out of his miserable, introspective mood.

Richie begged a ride from his mom. Even the promise of an afternoon in the arcade with Eddie couldn’t get him outside in this weather. Richie’s mom was pleased to drive them if it meant he was getting out from under her feet.

As they were playing, Richie couldn’t shake the thought of tendrils wrapping around each of them, and the fear that Ben and Bev had cut them off, or forgotten them, whatever it was. That was an unpleasant thought. No-one liked to think they’d been left behind, forgotten. What was worse, though, what had started keeping Richie awake at night, and what was behind his melancholy mood, was the possibility that he might leave and forget, too.

***

Richie’s low mood was swept away when the rain stopped, and his thoughts turned back to his campaign to become the editor of the school newspaper when he started junior year. This was part of a long-game revenge plan to get control of the paper publish a series of hilarious articles that he periodically composed in his head about the personal lives of the cheerleaders and football players who had tormented him through elementary and middle school. Failing that, he planned to get a job at the local radio station, or test out his ventriloquism on stage somewhere. Richie had a tendency to bounce from lethargic, low moods to periods where everything felt possible. These were the times when he usually had his most idiotic ideas, and, unfortunately, had the energy to try to undertake them.

Richie’s thoughts returned to Eddie and his popsicle experiment. 

He now had enough evidence to prove his theory. Eddie only shared with Richie. It was an irrefutable fact. 

Next, he had to establish whether the logic of his experiment transferred from popsicles. The 64,000 dollar question was, did Eddie have romantic feelings for Richie? Could he?

Richie turned the question over and over in his mind, with scenarios spinning out covering a range of eventualities, while he kept his hands busy with his Rubix Cube, or playing Sonic on Stan’s MegaDrive, or feeding endless quarters into the Street Fighter game at the arcade. He could multi-task again, now that his mood had turned.

In the end, while Richie was cutting the lawn (front, back and sides) on a Saturday morning for a few bucks, he came to the conclusion that the only way he’d ever find out, would be to ask Eddie directly. There was no experiment that could find out, definitively, what Eddie was thinking. It needed to come directly from the source.

He knew this was a high risk strategy. He had no idea how Eddie would react.

It had only been a matter of weeks since he’d started to accept that he was probably gay. He’d only just stopped censoring his own thoughts about himself. Well, he still censored himself, if he was honest. It wasn’t easy to shake off years of conditioning and the pressures of living in a small town. He knew he would never walk down the street, holding hands with Eddie (or any other boy). He knew he couldn’t go to prom with a boy. He couldn’t kiss a boy at the movies. Richie wasn’t sad about it, it was the way it was. Richie might be coming to terms with himself, but he couldn’t expect the world to change around him. And the world, his world, wasn’t kind to boys like him.

There were risks involved in letting this secret out, beyond the terrible possibility that Eddie might be disgusted and reject him. There were his parents to think about, and the judgement of the church, how his teachers might treat him differently. He was already accustomed to being pushed into the lockers at school, being tripped in the lunch hall, spending far too much time running away from bullies (admittedly, it was usually his own mouth that got him into trouble). He was used to the names that had followed him, in the arcade, in the halls, at the movies, since he was eleven, when something - and he still didn’t know what - marked him as different. Richie knew there was a big difference between being bullied by a bunch of (mostly dumb) kids and being ostracised by society as a whole. 

Richie literally had no frame of reference, no idea how to come out or what he’d do if he did come out. He knew that most people thought homosexuals were sinners who would burn in hell. There were no role models, other than the tragic men in the public eye who died of AIDS. When Richie thought about gay men, he pictured Rock Hudson and Freddie Mercury, gaunt and hollow-eyed, staring out of the newspaper articles reporting their illnesses and deaths.

The thing was, Richie didn’t feel like a sinner when he thought about Eddie. He felt lifted up, whole, exhilarated.

In Derry, Richie knew of the Tracker Brothers who ran the truck depot over by the vacant lot where Eddie sometimes played baseball. Richie didn’t think they were actually brothers. There was the Falcon down by the canal, and Richie had heard tales about men giving blow jobs right out in the bar. He didn’t know anyone who’d actually been in there.

Cutting the lawn was thirsty work. He went inside to get a lemonade from the refrigerator, and told his dad, who was still sitting at the dinner table behind his newspaper, that he was just taking a break, he’d get back to work in a minute. The paper rustled, in a way that Richie interpreted as ‘get the job done, Richie.’ He downed the lemonade, put the glass in the dishwasher (because he was absent minded, and chaotic, not an animal) and went back outside.

He didn’t want to push Eddie into facing up to something he wasn’t ready to think about.  
He didn’t want to be wrong about Eddie. He didn’t want Eddie to recoil from him in disgust, or to become so self-conscious that he stopped sharing his popsicles with Richie. He wanted things to change, and yet wanted things to stay the same.

By the time he’d finished with the lawn, Richie was done thinking about all this for the day. He took a shower, rinsing the grass clippings off his legs and watching them spiral down the drain. Then he called Bill, and invited him to the movies. This would take his mind off Eddie, and the conversation he needed to have with him.

***

It was two weeks before Richie managed to get Eddie alone.

In that two weeks, Richie oscillated to and fro, deciding to keep his secret and then deciding to tell, until Richie was reminded of his seventh grade yo-yo obsession. He cut the lawn again. He played a lot of Sonic with Stan. He helped his mother with the grocery shopping, and he tidied his room. He spent time in the library, thinking about Ben who still hadn’t called. He thought every day about the cost of speaking out compared with the burden of keeping quiet. Eventually, his feelings spilled out into R+E carved into the wood of the Kissing Bridge, a defiant counter-point to the homophobic graffiti under the viaduct, even if he was the only one who knew about this small act of rebellion.

Then the stars aligned, and Richie’s parents and Eddie’s mom were out of town for the night at the same time. Richie’s mom and dad were at the annual dentistry convention (the theme this year was toothpaste and tiaras), and one of Eddie’s aunts had been taken ill. If Richie had more than four friends in town, it would have been a great time to throw a party. Obviously, Richie had no intention of inviting a bunch of kids who hated him over to trash his house, and especially not when he could invite Eddie over for a sleepover instead. Eddie’s mom reluctantly allowed him to spend the night at Richie’s house. Eddie was smart enough not to mention that Richie’s parents were also out of town for the weekend, and convinced her that he’d be safer with Richie than by himself (which Richie knew, must have been a hard sell, given what his mom thought about him).

They’d had sleepovers before, but not since Richie had come to terms with his feelings. Admittedly, the recent ones had been awkward exercises in the suppression of Richie’s hormones and emotions, but Richie and Eddie had a long history of goofing off at Richie’s house, listening to music, watching the 14” TV in Richie’s room, and reading comic books.

Eddie arrived with his backpack and a stack of comics with plastic covers. Eddie covered all of his comics, in order to protect them from what he called Richie’s grubby Cheeto-dusted fingers. They watched Terminator on the VHS, and Richie ordered in a pizza, half pepperoni (his), and half mushroom and bell pepper (Eddie’s, who never missed an opportunity to ruin perfectly good junk food with vegetables). They talked about starting school in a couple of weeks, how wild it was that they were going to be juniors, and what schools they’d be applying for. Eddie was intent on doing business at NYU, while Richie was still undecided. He could see him and Eddie going to the same school, sharing a dorm - that would be so cool - but he had no idea what he wanted to study. Eddie said that Richie was the kind of kid that would submit his applications at literally the eleventh hour, and still get in everywhere, while Eddie would spend hours and hours agonising over his admissions essay, and who would submit weeks ahead of the deadline. 

They finished eating the pizza, leaving a couple of slices for breakfast tomorrow, which Eddie, predictably, said was gross, and Richie put the final part of his experiment into play.

He went to the freezer and brought a cherry flavoured popsicle to Eddie. Eddie took it.

Richie had been rehearsing his speech in his own head for days. In his mind, he eloquently and persuasively set out his case, in a way that was convincing and non-threatening. Leaving, he hoped, a way back for them if (when) Eddie rejected him. His palms were clammy, and he could feel the blush creeping across his cheeks. He sat awkwardly in the chair facing Eddie, who was sprawled across the sofa, and braced himself to drop his bombshell.

“Why do you keep bringing me popsicles?” Eddie said, completely derailing Richie’s planned speech, and waving the popsicle at him, so that little droplets flew off and landed on the rug.

“Um...” Richie said.

“Did you think I haven’t noticed?” Eddie said. “You’ve been buying me popsicles and watching me eat them all summer. I’m not blind, Richie. I have eyes. Is this some kind of trick or joke you’re playing on me?”

“What?” Richie said, apparently losing the ability to form a coherent sentence. This was not how he imagined this would go. “No. No, it’s not a joke.”

“What is it, then?” Eddie said, his voice rising. Richie had a flash memory of Eddie standing at the edge of the sewer lecturing him about the many types of bacteria that could literally kill them, while Richie was ankle deep in grey water, making bad jokes about missing kids. “Because it feels like this is some kind of elaborate plan or experiment. I know Stan’s in on it. Probably Mike and Bill, too. I thought you’d grown out of this kind of crap, Richie. It’s not cool, not cool at all.” 

Then Richie, never afflicted with good judgement, lost control of his mouth and said, “Maybe I just like watching you eat them.”

Eddie opened his mouth, as if he intended to continue his rant, and then closed it. He looked at Richie, and Richie forced himself to look back, resisting the urge to take of his glasses and have everything disappear into a myopic haze.

“What?’ Eddie said. “Why?” And then he paused, and blushed crimson. Richie normally took great pleasure in making Eddie blush, but this was not a normal situation. “Oh.” Eddie said, glancing across at Richie, and then looked away. “You like watching me eat them?” Eddie said, and Richie nodded, suddenly unable to meet Eddie’s eyes. “Like this?” Eddie said, taking a long lick on the popsicle he was still holding.

Richie wasn’t sure if Eddie was teasing him, or taunting him. 

He looked back up, and saw an unmistakeable challenge in Eddie’s eyes. 

“Well?” Eddie said, licking the popsicle again. “Are you going to tell me?”

Richie got up and went to his dad’s liquor cabinet. He took out the bottle of cheap bourbon that his dad had been given last Christmas by one of his suppliers, and poured a generous slug into a tumbler. The neck of the bottle jittered against the glass as Richie struggled to keep his hands steady. His dad would notice the level in the bottle had gone down, but Richie might get away with topping it back up with water. It was worth a try.

“Want some?” Richie said.

Eddie nodded. Richie handed him the glass, poured another for himself, and sat back in his chair.

Eddie, who Richie now believed was torturing him, dipped his popsicle in the glass, stirred it around and sucked it. Richie had to look away. 

“Cherry bourbon’s a good combination.” Eddie said. “Want to try?”

“No, I’m good.” Richie said, taking a big gulp from his glass. He immediately regretted it, as his throat flamed and his eyes started watering. Richie was not a hardened drinker. He spluttered a little. This was not going as he planned.

“Are you teasing me?” Richie said. “Because I’m not reading the room right now and I don’t know if you’re being cruel because you think I’m out of line with all this.” He gestured between the two of them.

Eddie sucked on the popsicle again, meeting Richie’s gaze.

“Jesus, Eddie!” Richie said. “OK, OK. It was an experiment, OK? I thought that you share your popsicles with me, but not with the others. And I started thinking about why that might be, so I tested the hypothesis. Hence the all popsicles.”

Eddie squeezed out the remaining popsicle into his whiskey, and swirled the cherry ice in the glass, and took a sip. “Go on.” He said. 

Richie wanted to get up, move around, use up some of the unfocussed energy that seemed to be burning his skin from the inside-out, but he stayed still. “My observations confirmed my theory.” He said. “You only share popsicles, or slushies or drinks with me. I’ve never seen you share anything with anyone else.”

Eddie had a faraway look on his face, which Richie thought was probably him running through his memory to try to call up a counter-argument. In the end, his face cleared and he said, “You’re right. I don’t like sharing with people. Germs.” 

“But you share with me.”

Eddie nodded. “I share with you.” He said. “And you like watching me eat popsicles?”

“Yes.” Richie said, in a whisper, taking a small sip of bourbon to hide his nerves. It was now or never. He could pull back from what he’d said already, but would need to be all-in if he was going to move forward with his confession. “Your mouth...”

“Oh god.” Eddie said. “I only share the damn popsicles with you, so I can watch you eat them.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Richie said, irrationally indignant for a moment, before he checked himself for his own hypocrisy.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Eddie said. “I was scared, you idiot. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not the kind of casual conversation you have by the lockers at school. It’s not like I could ask anyone for advice. There aren’t any books in the library on being,” he hesitated, “being drawn to your best friend. Like that.”

“True.” Richie said. “I’ve been freaking out for weeks. I wasn’t sure if the experiment meant anything, or if I was just projecting my feelings on to you. It’s been exhausting.”

Richie sank back into his chair, and took a sip of his drink. Eddie swung his feet off the sofa and leaned forward. He looked a little pale around the edges, and his fists were clenched at his side. Richie got a sense of what it must be costing Eddie to have this conversation with him. While Richie’s parents were conservative and Catholic, they loved him. He didn’t think there was anything he could do that would shake that foundation. They might be confused, disappointed, or scared if they knew he had romantic feelings for a boy, but they wouldn’t reject him. Somehow he knew that. Eddie’s mom, on the other hand, was a notorious bigot. Richie was pretty sure Eddie would not share his confidence that his mother would love him regardless of whether he was straight or gay.

“Eddie, you’ve been watching me, and I’ve been watching you, so...?”

“It means I want to kiss you, dumbass.” Eddie said.

“Holy shit.” Richie said. 

He didn’t know who moved first. In an instant, they were both standing up, close to each other but not touching. Richie didn’t know how to close the distance. He didn’t know how to take the next step, and he was starting to feel awkward, when Eddie huffed impatiently, grabbed him on the back of his neck and pulled him down. The first brush of their lips was dry, chaste and totally electrifying.

Richie felt dizzy with the sensation of his lips touching Eddie’s. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. Eddie kept one hand on his neck, and the other on Richie’s bicep. In the end, he buried his hands in the T-shirt fabric in the small of Eddie’s back, pulling him closer.

Eddie tightened his grip on Richie’s neck, and Richie felt arousal bloom through his whole body. He had no idea that a hand on his neck could feel so scorchingly erotic. Their kisses were open mouthed, lingering. Eddie tasted of cherry bourbon. When Eddie’s tongue touched his, Richie thought he’d expire from the thrill of it. Richie would be happy to do this all day.

They broke apart, and Richie took hold of Eddie’s hand and pulled him down onto the sofa. Eddie threw his leg over Richie’s thighs and settled in his lap. This put their faces level, so Richie could kiss him without bending down, and he found his new position even better.

Richie had no idea that kissing could feel this way, like the world could end around them, and he’d barely notice. It felt like the oxygen had been sucked out of the room, and Eddie was the air. It felt like he was drowning. It felt like he was ablaze.

The movie had finished, and the pizza leftovers were discarded on the coffee table. 

“I can’t believe this is happening.” Richie said, when they broke apart. Eddie sat back into the gap between Richie’s knees, holding onto his shoulders for support.

“It’ll have to be our secret.” Eddie said. “While we’re in Derry.”

Richie nodded. “It’ll be exciting.” He said. “Just for the two of us.”

“Just the two of us.” Eddie agreed. “Until we get to college. Then we’ll be able to do whatever we want, whenever we want.”

Richie leaned forward to kiss him again. Just because he could. He wanted to keep doing this forever. And maybe, if they could escape from Derry to college in a big city, Eddie would let him. 

Later, when Eddie was asleep in Richie’s bed, and Richie was laying on the blow-up mattress on the floor, Richie’s treacherous mind turned to Bev and Ben again, and how they’d both disappeared from his life. This couldn’t happen with Eddie, Richie thought.

He would never forget Eddie, and Eddie would never forget him.


End file.
